Normalization for Normal People, Part I--The "Language" of the Database, cont'd. AGAIN

Last time, I ended my post with an ambiguous reference to my birth date. I did that to make a couple of points. Well, actually I wanted to reinforce a point I'd made in an earlier blog as well as to introduce one new point.

The reinforced point is that ambiguity in natural languages, like English, is desirable

Normalization for Normal People, Part I--The "Language" of the Database, cont'd.

When you are able to apply a single, unambiguous name to every thing, or "entity" you want to track in your database, you are able to slap a label on each one of them, clearly identifying them as that thing.

To return to our language metaphor, there is one noun that serves as the name for each entity and everyone can clearly state which noun that is